This healthy and easy meal is made with lean ground chicken, fresh green beans and carrots and noodles tossed in a flavorful stir-fry sauce. You’ll love this mouthwatering, slurpy weeknight dinner recipe.
- Prep Time:
20 mins - Cook Time:
20 mins - Total Time:
40 mins
Stir-frying made easier
I had always thought my chicken stir-fry dinners were one of the easiest meals I cooked. Cut some chicken, cut some veggies, stir-fry everything in a hot wok and dinner is done. What could be easier?
Apparently, not having to cut any chicken would be easier.
Not long ago, my youngest daughter pointed out that cutting up raw chicken was one of her least favorite tasks when cooking and she really wished I would develop more ground chicken recipes that didn’t require doing much more to the chicken than putting it in a hot pan.
Fair request. This recipe is for her (and anyone else looking for an easy ground chicken recipe).
Stir-frying made even easier
I do love a saucy slurpy stir-fry situation but I do get that cooking and draining some noodles isn’t always doable especially on a weeknight. So, for an even easier dinner option, omit the noodles and serve the stir-fry over hot cooked rice instead.
This recipe is a great way to use up vegetables lingering in your fridge. If you’re a stir-fry pro, then feel free to cook all the vegetables at once. If not, you may want to cook each kind of vegetable separately so you don’t have to worry about which vegetables cook faster than others.
Ground Chicken Stir-Fry with Green Beans, Carrots, and Noodles
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Stir-fry
- Cuisine: Asian Inspired
Description
This stir-fry with ground chicken, fresh green beans, carrots and noodles tossed in a flavorful stir-fry sauce is easy and healthy. You’ll love this mouthwatering slurpy weeknight dinner recipe.
Ingredients
For the sauce
- 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
- 1/4 cup oyster sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon sriracha (or more if you like spicy)
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce
For the stir-fry
- 6 ounces dried instant ramen noodles or Japanese-style egg noodles
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 8 ounces thin French green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-3 inch pieces
- 8 ounces carrot (about 2 medium), julienne cut (see Note 1)
- 1 pound ground chicken (or lean ground turkey)
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger (about 1-inch piece of ginger)
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 4–5 cloves)
- 1/2 cup chopped scallions (about 3 scallions), green and white parts
- Chili crisp, for serving if desired
- Chopped scallions, for serving if desired
- Chopped cilantro, Thai basil, or mint, for serving if desired
Instructions
For the sauce
- Stir. In a small bowl, stir the sauce ingredients together until evenly mixed. Set aside.
For the stir-fry
- Cook noodles. Bring a medium pot of water to boil. Add noodles to the boiling water and cook until noodles are just al dente, 2-4 minutes depending on brand. Drain noodles. Set aside.
- Cook green beans. In a large skillet or wok, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat. Add green beans to the oil, spreading the beans out as much as possible. Let the green beans cook for 40-50 seconds so that some char develops on the bottom. Stir and toss the green beans and repeat letting them cook for 40-50 seconds and tossing again. Continue cooking the green beans this way until they are slightly charred, bright green, and just tender-crisp, about 5 minutes total depending on the size of your green beans (see Note 2). Transfer the cooked green beans to a dish. Set aside.
- Cook carrots. Return pan to medium-high heat and add carrots. Cook them in the same manner as the beans (cook 40-50 seconds, toss, repeat) until carrots are tender-crisp. Transfer the carrots to same dish as the green beans. Set aside.
- Cook chicken. Return pan to medium-high heat and add 1 tablespoon oil. Tilt and rotate pan to spread the oil around. Add ground chicken and spread evenly across the pan. Let the chicken cook undisturbed for 3-4 minutes until the bottom of the chicken is deeply browned. Stir the chicken, spread out again and let it cook undisturbed again for 3-4 more minutes until the bottom is browned. Reduce heat if chicken starts to burn instead of brown. The goal is to develop some deep color on the chicken (for flavor and texture) not just cook it.
- Add aromatics. Reduce heat to medium and add ginger, garlic, and scallions. Toss chicken with aromatics until fragrant and chicken is cooked through, breaking up chicken into small pieces with a spatula.
- Add sauce. Pour sauce over chicken and stir until chicken is evenly coated.
- Toss everything together. Add green beans, carrots, and noodles (see Note 3) to pan then give everything a good toss until everything is heated through. Remove from heat and continue tossing until everything is evenly coated.
- Serve. Divide stir-fry among among serving dishes and top with chili crisp, scallions, and fresh herbs as desired.
Notes
- If desired, you can replace the carrots with more green beans.
- To speed up the cooking of the green beans, you can add 1-2 teaspoons of water then cover the pan for a few minutes to let the steam cook the beans. Be careful adding water to the pan as it will cause the oil to splatter.
- The cooked noodles will stick together a bit after they have been drained and sit for a few minutes. This is fine because they’ll separate once they get tossed with the sauce. However, if they have sat for a long while and are really stuck together, you can run them under warm water to loosen them up before tossing them in the skillet. Just be sure to drain them thoroughly first.
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